The Terrible Trio
by Comp450
Summary: It was a fun night, but the details are a bit fuzzy. Is it something to do again, or will their guilt hold them back? HowardxBernadettexRaj


**The Terrible Trio: Chapter One**

The sun peaked through the window shades and hit Bernadette's closed eyes, finally waking her at about six in the morning. She furrowed her eyebrows and reminded herself for the fifth time to buy a set of decent curtains. She tried to sit up and smiled when she felt some resistance at her stomach. Howard sure did like to cuddle.

Unlike the left (which was stuck under Howard's neck), Bernadette's right arm was free to rub across her eyes to remove the sleep necessary for opening. When she was done rubbing she propped herself up on her right elbow and slowly opened those eyes.

She didn't know what she was seeing at first. Howard was right where she expected him to be; he was lying on his side on her left with his right arm tucked under his torso and his left arm draped over Bernadette's stomach. But that arm didn't occupy her stomach by itself.

Bernadette slowly, painfully, followed the length of Howard's arm to his elbow, where it was joined by a brown hand clutching that elbow, and down the length of the brown arm, up the torso of a brown body and into the sleeping face of Rajesh Koothrappali.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, that happened.

Bernadette wouldn't allow herself to freak out quite yet. She could freak out in the bathroom as well as she could just sitting in bed. So she slowly peeled the two arms off her body and pulled herself out from under the covers. She was thrilled to find that all three of them were completely naked. Except for Howard's socks.

She sighed but held in her groan. She needed to get out of bed without waking the two men, or she would have to think about this with two others who would probably be more upset than she was. Howard stirred a bit as she retrieved her arm from under his head, but he didn't wake and she was able to crawl to the foot of the bed and leave the room. She passed plenty of alcohol on her way to the bathroom, which relieved her a bit. Nothing like a few bottles of tequila to blame the guilt away.

As soon as the water from the shower was running down her hair and back Bernadette allowed herself to panic. There were two naked men lying in her bed, to only one of which she was engaged. To make matters worse, she couldn't remember exactly what they did the night before. Well, she knew what they did, she just didn't know the details. The mechanics. Did Raj just watch? Or were all three of them involved somehow? She was pretty sure that she herself had participated. Besides the guilt and anxiety the morning placed her in, she could feel that post-sex glow as evidence for her very un-Catholic actions.

She took her time working the shampoo into her hair. Maybe if she spent enough time in the shower, Raj would wake up and disappear before she got out and Howard woke up. Then they could all pretend this had never happened.

Meanwhile, Howard's stomach was getting cold due to his fiancée's absence. He was still half-asleep and reached out to pull the blankets farther up his chest, when his hand brushed up against someone's chest. Certainly not a woman's chest.

He opened his eyes to Raj. Just like Bernadette and the alcohol, this strangely relieved Howard. He hadn't had quite as much to drink as his fiancée, so he vaguely remembered that he had done something regrettable the night before. But at least it was Raj. Howard had always sort of suspected that he'd wake up next to a man some day, but if it was his passive friend Raj it was more likely that he had come out on top in the ordeal. So to speak.

He could hear the shower running. So Bernadette had snuck out of bed to think this through without them. How sneaky. Well, Howard could certainly do the same. He might even be able to get dressed and make it to Leonard and Sheldon's place in time for breakfast. What did they have on Saturdays? As long as they didn't serve shame and hangovers it had to be better than this.

Howard sighed. He wasn't going to sneak out and let Bernadette deal with Raj. Or let Raj wake up naked alone in a strange bed and have to sneak out. Howard would have liked to say this made him a good person, but he admitted to himself that it probably had more to do with wanting someone to share his misery. So he punched Raj in the chest.

"Ouch!" Raj woke up with a start and covered his chest with his arms. Howard briefly covered his ears. His head was not ready for the yelling. Raj slowly came to his senses and saw Howard lying across from him with a blanket up to his hips, but otherwise naked. He looked down and saw that he was also naked, lying on his stomach. He looked back at Howard, who stared blankly at him. "Why'd you hit me, dude?"

"Really?" Howard rubbed his own left temple with his knuckles, trying to wake up. It only made his headache worse. "You wake up naked in Bernadette's bed and that's what you care about?"

That made Raj blink hard a few times to clear the alcohol. He turned over and sat up. A few more blinks and a look around the room brought the events of the night coming back to him in a rush. He slowly lay back down and pulled the blanket up to his neck. He wanted to pull it over his head, but there were two naked men underneath, so. He did squeeze his eyes shut, though. "Oh dear."

Howard glanced at the bathroom door. "Look, Bernadette's in the shower, so we have a few minutes to figure this out. Do you remember what we did last night?"

"You mean did we…?"

"Yeah."

Both men looked up at the ceiling and tried to clear their hangover enough to bring back the memory of the night before. After ten seconds or so, Raj shook his head. "No, I don't think we did. I mean, not us." He looked at Howard. "But I'm pretty sure I had sex with Bernadette."

Howard was still for a few seconds more, trying to bring his memory up to speed with Raj's. "Yeah," he said after. "I think I remember that." Another pause and, "Sorry, Raj, but I think we did do something."

"What do you mean?"

Howard looked down at his body that was covered by the blanket. "Well, my little buddy claims that he was satisfied last night. And I'm pretty sure I didn't have sex with Bernadette."

Raj shut his eyes and reluctantly let that particular memory come back to him. "Oh dear god." Howard reached over to the night stand on his side of the bed and grabbed the bottle of tequila. He handed it to Raj. Raj sat up and took a swig from the bottle. He swished it around in his mouth and spat it out into a glass on his night stand. Then he drank a few mouthfuls straight from the bottle.

"Better?"

"Dude, I don't think I can ever forget that."

"Well, drink up." Howard punched his friend in the shoulder. "Alcohol kills germs." Howard swung his legs over the side of the bed and started to pull on his briefs.

Raj self-consciously pulled the blanket tighter on his lap. "How can you be so chipper about this?"

Howard was walking around the bedroom in his whitey-tighties looking for the rest of his clothes. He found Raj's boxers and threw them at him. "What am I supposed to do? Freak out and not talk to you again?" He found his shirt thrown onto Bernadette's dresser and pulled it on. "Besides, I figure it's not that bad. I just watched my best friend have sex with my fiancée and let him make me happy in a different way." Howard let a smile creep onto his face as the memory returned to him. "I think at the same time even."

Raj had pulled on his boxers and was now sitting with his legs over the side of the bed. He covered his face with his hands. "Howard, stop. I'm going to go home and brush my teeth. For an hour."

"You're not going to stay for breakfast?" Howard threw his arms open in mock anger. He put on his best imitation of his mother-if she were ever in this situation, anyway. "Sure, you drink all our alcohol and share our bed, but you can't spend a morning of eggs and good conversation with us."

"Please, Howard." Raj was pulling his pants on as quickly as he could and had found his shirt. "I really don't want to talk about this right now."

Howard nodded and stopped playing. "You OK to drive, buddy?"

"I think so." Raj then stumbled over his pant legs. "Oh, alright. I'll take a taxi. I'll…I'll come get my car later." And he hurried out the door.

Howard watched the door swing closed. Poor Raj. Howard was lucky; he had been expecting this. Although not necessarily with Raj, and certainly not with Bernadette also involved. But ever since George Takei had popped up in his fantasy, the morning Howard would wake up next to a guy had become an inevitability he had learned to live with. It was good to get it out of the way.

The shower was still running. Well, neither he nor Bernadette had to work, so Howard pulled his shirt and briefs back off and strutted toward the bathroom. Bernadette didn't notice when he opened the door and quietly closed it behind him, so Howard was able to fling open the shower curtain and give Bernadette a scare.

She shrieked. "Oh my god, Howard," she said after a second.

Howard leaned on the door next to the shower. "Hello, darling. I was just thinking that we could save the planet just a little bit for our many, many children if we were to conserve water. How about if I join you and we can make this shower twice as fun with half the resources."

Bernadette smiled softly and allowed Howard to climb in beside her. He massaged her soapy hair and the two stood in the shower quietly for several minutes. "So, is Raj still out there?" Bernadette finally asked, squeezing a handful of shampoo into her hand to return the favor.

Howard turned around and let her rub the soap into the back of his scalp. "No, he took off." He sighed and breathed in the scent of the shampoo. Whenever he and Bernadette shared a shower, she used her cherry-scented shampoo instead of his own more neutral scents in his hair. It was her way of marking her territory, and Howard found it sexier than being peed on, so he didn't complain. "Do you want to talk about last night?" he asked when she didn't reply right away.

"I suppose we should," she relented after a few more seconds, "but I don't even know where to begin! I feel so guilty about all this."

"I say don't blame yourself. Or me. We can blame Raj, since he's not here."

"Don't say that, Howie! I don't think he's at fault, he's such a sweet boy…"

Howard turned around. "Oh?" He bent over and kissed his fiancée under her chin, nuzzling into her neck. "Well then, let's start talking about the important stuff. _How_ was last night?"

Bernadette giggled under Howard's teeth, which were now nibbling at her ear. "I'm surprised you really want to talk about this…" The anxiety started to leave their minds as they devoted more of their concentration to each other and less to the moral implications of the night before.

"It's OK," Howard mumbled as he poured a dollop of body wash onto a pink loofah, "I want to know what's making you the most upset. And what makes you the most excited."

Bernadette's head leaned back and she let the water stream over her face for a moment. "It was really great," she finally admitted.

"He's better than me?" Howard made his voice sound upset, but his efforts were rendered useless when he gave into the irresistible urge to rub his thumbs over the top of Bernadette's chest.

She also put on a scolding face. "Oh, come on. I bet you can't tell me you didn't like those soft lips."

Howard's shoulders jumped a little. He smiled and looked at a space in the air. "Yeah, that was pretty good." They both thought for a minute, then he continued. "So do we want to do this again?"

"Would that be OK?" She put her arms around Howard's shoulders and began to nuzzle his neck. "I mean, would that be cheating?"

"It's not cheating if I'm still involved." He pulled Bernadette's chin away from his neck and kissed her. They nibbled at each other until the water turned cold and they had to stop. They dried each other off, got dressed, and went to breakfast. Same as every Saturday.

Except now they had an exciting new secret they shared. They wondered if that secret would agree to come back to them.

**End Chapter One**

_OK, folks. This is my first The Bing Bang Theory fan fiction (that I actually submitted). Tell me what you think of it._

_Specifically, I'm looking for input on a title. I am so bad at titles, oh my goodness. I welcome any input. Also tell me about the characters' personalities, about how accurate I was. I don't think it's possible to make them completely accurate with this kind of story, but I'll try my best. Finally, I'd like to keep this story at a T rating, so I'd value any advice you have about whether this chapter was too explicit, or could I perhaps add more?_

_Thank you for your time. I hope you have a good day._


End file.
